below: More words, this time “It’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood.” A quote from the TV show, ‘Mr. Rogers Neighbourhood’ along with a picture of Daniel Striped Tiger, a hand puppet from the same show.

below: Shafia Shaik working on her mural. The word GLOW has been cut off. The finished work was signed as EWOK project standing for Equity for Women of (K)olour.

below: A mural by muisca. The finished mural has green leaves and vines on both sides of the face.

The Gardens of St. Clair is a mural project in an alley behind St. Clair West between Prescott and Blackthorn Avenues, just west of the railway tracks. There are lots of roses and other flowers as well as butterflies and birds.

below: A purple pansy and a luminescent insect with a shiny blue body. The dark green vine motif runs throughout the project.

Graffiti Alley keeps drawing me back to see if there are any changes. What is new and what has disappeared. To see who is hanging out in the lane today and have a silent chuckle or two at the tourists.

below: Sunny days in Graffiti Alley

below: Let’s Eat Sandwiches Together Forever, by elicser, seems to have been refreshed recently.

below: He’s pointing to the sky because he’s giving us a detailed weather forecast.

below: The last time that I walked down Graffiti Alley, elicser was in the midst of painting this door.

below: Hello!

below: Montreal and Toronto and the writing in between.

below: A lovebot of a different sort. Almost unrecognizable except for that heart. Only lovebot has a heart like that.

below: A large carp painted by Nick Sweetman. A fish out of water.

below: Broken window

below: Pink roses and words of love and encouragement (and a little bit of flattery). The future is bright and do more of what makes you happy.

below: A new poser bunny at Portland Place

below: Toronto Blue Jays vs. stencils are wack

below: Walking past the praying mantis which is memorial to Jesse.

below: Rat and a spray paint can can’t keep the eyes in their heads.

below: Unfortunately, part of the uber5000 wintertime Toronto mural has been tagged over.

below: Honk! honk! An uber5000 yellow bunny offers a donut

below: Starbursts (or flowers, or just interesting shapes) in pink and yellow

below: The elephant isn’t in the room, it hasn’t made it down the stairs yet.

below: A collaboration between immortalwales and kyleghostkeeper. Both are tattoo artists and they both have instagram accounts if you are interested in seeing their work.

Caterpillars and butterflies is the theme of the latest laneway painting project. A year ago, Nick Sweetman led a group of street artists who painted garage doors in a lane near Garrison Creek park with pictures of butterflies. These murals appeared in blog post in June 2017

This year’s project was similar. Many of the same artists were involved again this year. They used garages, fences and gates in a lane near Felstead Park (a block south of Greenwood subway station) as their canvas. Once again, the theme was butterflies as it too was part of the David Suzuki Foundation’s butterflyways project. This time, a similar blue background was used in all the murals which has given it a more unified appearance.

The project was curated by Nick Sweetman and it had the support of Start aka StreetARToronto

below: Felstead Park, by @braes_ack

below: In the shadow of the weed are the letters CTR

below: Mural signed by Kehoe, the face of David Suzuki

below: Green and yellow toadstools by mska

below: Mural by @oriah_scott

below: butterfly among the pink and red flowers, by P.S. aka Phillip Saunders

below: A sombre dark piece (is it finished?) by @poserabm

below: Three butterflies by Serina

below: Collaboration – A monarch painted by Nick Sweetman and a wonderful rose by Wales

below: A bright and busy mural by Spyone and Tensoe

below: The hookah-smoking caterpillar from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” is crawling across the fence. Painted by elicser

below: Red panda out on a limb, perhaps chasing the butterfly, by Ted Hamer (@The1astRonin)

below: A butterfly in the garden; the work of Anya Mielniczek

below: Two flowers, one pink and one blue, by Chris Perez

below: It looks a lot like a skull on the back of this butterfly painted by @cmazzulla aka Christine Mazzulla

below: A curled up caterpillar in pink and black, very larger than life!, by Spud.

below: By Dezed, a butterly, mushrooms, and a bit of water

below: Reaching out to the butterfly, giving the butterfly a helping hand, painted by @drippin_soul (Kalkidan Assefa)

below: On the right, Emma, the property owner’s dog who died recently. Nick Sweetman painted the dog while @mr_tensoe2 painted the dog’s name

Recently I saw a blogTO article about “A massive Overwatch mural” that was being painted on King Street West. I was curious so off I went to check it out.

below: Here is the mural. Yes it’s big, but massive no. When I think massive I think Phlegm’s mural at Yonge and St. Clair, or Adrian Hayles music murals near Yonge and College. And whoa, what’s that in the bottom right corner? This is an ad for a video game and this is a picture of Karya, one of the characters. Under the heading of ‘you never know where things are going to lead’ – Overwatch is a multi-player team game where competitions are held and prizes won. There is an Overwatch World Cup which was won by South Korea in both 2016 and 2017. This year there was a Canadian team and they came second. Yeah Canada!

below: Around the corner is another mural. This one is painted onto the side of an old brick building by Omen514. As you can see, it is part of the most recent ad campaign by Sick Kids Hospital to raise 1.3 billion dollars to rebuild the hospital starting with the building at Elm and Elizabeth streets. The black and white of the mural matches the black and white of the video advertising. Omen514 had help from Nick Sweetman, Earth Crusher, Poser, and Five S, all of whom are street artists as well.

below: … And another mural in the same neighbourhood. This one is on the side of the Kiin restaurant (Thai) and as you can see, the name of the restaurant is in the mural. Again, street art but not street art. Whatever you choose to call it, it’s much more appealing than a blank grey wall.

below: Businesses, such as Champs Food Supplies pictured here, have been using murals to draw attention to themselves for a long time.

below: It is still standing even as it’s being dwarfed by the condo developments around it.

below: And even farther back in time – This is the MacLean building that was built in 1914 (designed by George Wallace Gouinlock). It is at 345 Adelaide St. West, and the sign is on the east side of building. Hugh C. MacLean publications was founded in 1909 by Hugh Cameron MacLean. It published mostly trade journals such as ‘Footwear in Canada’. The company was bought by the Southam family and become Southam-Macleans… and then finally Southam Business Publications in 1964. As it turns out, there were two MacLeans brothers in the publishing business, Hugh and brother John Bayne MacLean who founded the MacLean publishing company that would eventually become MacLean Hunter – the home of MacLeans magazine before it was swallowed up by Rogers Media.

below: This ghost sign is actually a double. The words ‘head office’ can be seen by the word MacLean and there is a box to the left of that. The number 33 is on the box and obviously means something. I haven’t been able to decipher the rest of the sign.

And then there is street art that is just that, decorations on a wall.

After I took the above photos and before I had finished writing this blog post, I came across another Sick Kids fundraising murals by the same artists as the one above.

below: Looking north up Broadview at Thompson street, just north of Queen.

below: The central portion of the mural.

below: In the mural the kids are collecting pieces of lumber, pipes, and concrete blocks. This is similar to the ad where kids are “running through city streets and alleyways, gathering building materials and running to an empty piece of land ready for construction.” (source)

Garrison Creek park is a small strip of green between the railway tracks an alley of garages. Many of the garage doors were painted last weekend with murals all on the theme of butterflies. There are about 30 paintings and they are the work of a number of different street artists. The project was curated by Nick Sweetman and it is part of the David Suzuki Foundation’s Butterflyway project; StreetARToronto was also involved.

If you don’t like pictures of butterfly murals, I suggest that you skip this post because I’m sharing photos of a lot of the garage doors! In no particular order here they are:

A few months ago I blogged about a large mural that Nick Sweetman painted on Queen Street East (Riverside Pollinator mural), a mural that featured a large bee. That mural was actually Sweetman’s second gigantic bee in Toronto. The first was at Bloor and Howland and it was painted in honour of National Pollinator Week back in June 2016.

The buzz of a green sweat bee (Agapostemon), covered in pollen as it fits itself into the center of a bright pink flower.

below: If you look closely, part of the globe is in its eye. North America and the top part of South America with the blue of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

below: The city of Toronto silhouetted against a star filled sunset sky.